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Navani receives the world in a half-circle chamber high in Urithiru, its inlaid floor showing the Double Eye of the Almighty with its Surges and Essences and its flat windows opening on the mountains. In the old Alethi tradition she has insisted every guest carry in their own chair — a reminder that each chief brings their own wisdom to the gathering. She and Dalinar arrive first. He has been silent on the lift ride up, brow furrowed in what looks to everyone else like a scowl. This morning, he quietly asked her to lead the meeting. Ever since his collapse at Azir, something in him has snapped. She tells him she still believes Elhokar and Adolin are alive. She has to: she has already grieved one daughter, only to have her returned.

Bridge Four crash in next with a squabble of mismatched seats — the Herdazian dragging in one so grand it is nearly a throne — and attack the refreshments without permission. One of them is carrying Jezerezeh's Honorblade; the men rotate it among themselves, dismissed and resummoned, so that no observer can know which of them holds it at any moment. Teft has already told Navani not to worry about their captain: Kaladin will survive this as he has survived everything else.

The foreign monarchs arrive in order. The young Azish Prime comes first on an ornate throne carried by his closest advisors. Behind him, three subject rulers — the prime of Emul, the princess of Yezier, the ambassador from Tashikk — bring chairs deliberately a touch inferior to his. The Alethi follow: Renarin with a plain seat, visibly afraid for his brother; Jasnah outdoing him with a padded stool. Ialai Sadeas ignores the carry-your-own rule entirely, letting a guardsman set down for her a sleek chair stained nearly black. Queen Fen and her consort take painted high-backed chairs at the window; Taravangian, excused from carrying but refusing the excuse, brings a plain wooden chair and sits with them, joined by Adrotagia and his Surgebinder. Au-nak, the Natan ambassador, represents a dead kingdom reduced to a single city-state. Sebarial and Palona saunter in last, having forgotten chairs entirely.

Navani opens by reminding the room that nothing like this assembly has been seen since the Recreance. Sebarial needles her from the food table — *the world should end more often, it makes everyone so accommodating.* She presses on: they are here to set a unified vision. Vexil speaks first, demanding the coalition reclaim Emul from the parshmen and then march on Tukar to put down its mad god-king. The room explodes — Au-nak objects that the Natan Oathgate is being used without permission; Tashikk inquires after tariffs; Fen proposes free trade; the Yezier princess worries about Iri and Rira aligning with the enemy. Navani tries to redirect to the question of equipment — Taravangian's Veden shields, the half-shards — but the old man is having a poor day and cannot say more than that the shields are *strong.*

Jasnah takes the question instead. The ancients, she tells the room, did not have superior technology — the modern world is far more advanced. What was lost at the Recreance was the bonding of spren, not fabrial science. *Not lost,* the Prime corrects. *Abandoned.* Dalinar, whose silent posture has loomed over the room since he sat down, answers from his chair: the oaths are spoken again, and this time the Radiants will not abandon them. He has bonded the Stormfather himself. The use of these powers is not optional. The Azish viziers remain uneasy: the Lost Radiants, they argue, sealed these portals for a reason.

Ialai then drops the calculated arrow Navani has been dreading: the coalition should stop pretending and start discussing where to invade, and the obvious answer is Shinovar — bounteous, soft, perfect for supplying their armies. Others pick the idea up. Navani curses her under her breath: this is exactly what the Azish fear of the Oathgates needed to hear. The conversation spirals — *Alethi greed* from Fen, *we will not be intimidated by merchants and bankers* from Ialai — and slips out of her grip again.

Then Navani stops talking and *listens.* The shape of the room comes clear: a roomful of building materials, pieces of a fabrial. Each kingdom is one piece. Dalinar has gathered them but has not formed them.

She bows to the Azish Prime and asks his people's greatest strength. *Our laws,* he answers. She names them the greatest organisers on Roshar — clerks of Azir, information centres of Tashikk, timekeepers of Yezier — and asks them to draft a code by which the coalition will govern itself. The Azish viziers nearly vibrate with pleasure. She turns to Fen: trade through the Oathgates will need administration; the Thaylen guilds are the obvious match. *You would give that to us?* Fen asks, astonished. Sebarial chokes on a snack — he had wanted the job. To Vexil she offers Alethi generals to help secure what remains of his shattered kingdom; to the room she lets Jasnah and Dalinar argue the corollary — fight from a defended position, ask not where to strike but where the enemy will strike next.

Aladar points out the three positions the enemy already holds: Iri, Marat — and Alethkar. Fen turns: *but you sent an expedition.* Navani and Jasnah tell the room what has not yet been said aloud. The expedition failed. Alethkar is overrun, Kholinar fallen completely, the Oathgate there locked from the Urithiru side so it cannot be used against them. Their armies have fled into Herdaz or Jah Keved. *We have become a nation of refugees,* Navani makes herself admit, and asks the room to spend its first efforts ensuring no further nations follow them.

Noura turns on Vexil in blunt terms — if the enemy had wanted his last sliver of Emul they would have taken it. Au-nak and Dalinar both think the next target is Jah Keved: the Veden civil war has gutted the country, and its border with Alethkar is porous. Taravangian is suddenly very afraid and begs that the coalition defend his adopted kingdom. Dalinar promises an Alethi force but warns that one army alone can look like an invasion. After private notes among the Azish, the Prime commits five battalions of his own — both to defend Jah Keved and to prove the Oathgates can move troops at scale.

She breaks for refreshment. Dalinar notes quietly that she has promised away a great deal. *Administration is different from control,* she answers. *Did you think this coalition would work without giving something up?* She studies him. He stiffens when she takes his hand, then stands — he always does, lately, when he feels himself growing too relaxed. She decides aloud that he needs to get out of the tower; Taravangian has been asking him to tour Vedenar in person, and if Alethi troops are about to enter Jah Keved it would make sense. *That,* Dalinar says hoarsely, *would be good.*

The Azish call her back for clarification. Navani goes — telling herself she has just taken a huge step toward unifying Roshar, asking herself why she has never felt more powerless.